Psychosis

“And it’s worth noting that even after treatment, when reality has been asserted, it’s still hard for the person who suffered from psychosis to tell the difference between what happened to them via psychosis and what reality was. In other words, their beliefs were so strongly held that they seemed real even after they knew that they were not.”

This paragraph, and this article if you choose to read it, describe why memories can be so painful for me. There is grief, yes. Deep grief. And there is also doubt. So many of my experiences have turned out not to be reality. But they still haunt me, partly because they are just as clear as if they really happened and partly because it’s scary to think your experiences were not real, just synapses misfiring.

I live a life in between reality and what’s in my head, each and every day. I have to stay on top of this so that I can learn to trust the memories I actually can remember. (Between sudden menopause and its symptoms a few years ago, and ECT, and multiple psych meds tried on me, and just having bipolar, my memory is terrible!)